'Stand your ground' laws in question after killing

LOS ANGELES TIMES

March 25, 2012Updated: March 25, 2012 9:40pm

Photo: Seth Wenig

Senior Minister Jacqueline Lewis, right, prays with her congregation at Middle Collegiate Church in New York on Sunday. Churchgoers were invited to wear hoodies to services to show their support for justice in the Trayvon Martin case.

Senior Minister Jacqueline Lewis, right, prays with her...

SANFORD, Fla. - It has been called "obscene," "stupid" and the "right-to-commit-murder law."

It has also been credited with protecting people like Sarah McKinley, a young widow who killed a knife-wielding man after he broke into her Oklahoma home.

Opinions about so-called stand your ground legislation - at the center of the Trayvon Martin killing in Sanford, Fla. - are as vastly different as the cases in which it has been invoked since Florida in 2005 became the first state to adopt such a statute. But now, even defenders of stand your ground laws say they may need tweaking to clarify the stew of interpretations that critics say are letting people like George Zimmerman, who shot the unarmed 17-year-old, get away with murder.

Sanford's police chief, Bill Lee Jr., has said Zimmerman appeared to be protected by the stand your ground law, which permits someone to "stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force," if the person fears death or great bodily harm. The law removes the duty to retreat in the face of a perceived threat, and it allows the use of force virtually anywhere.

Lee went on paid leave last week after the City Commission passed a no-confidence motion amid anger over his decision not to arrest Zimmerman.

Since 2005, similar or identical laws have been adopted in at least 20 other states, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. More states have laws based on stand your ground but with more limitations on where it can be applied. Most have followed Florida's lead in removing the duty of a person to retreat to prevent an altercation.

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In some cases, the law's value is not in dispute, as when McKinley, at home alone with her baby, shot a man dead after he broke down the door of her Blanchard, Okla., home last New Year's Eve. McKinley was guaranteed immunity against criminal charges and civil suits under that state's law.

"This is probably one of the best pieces of legislation our legislators have put into place because it enables people to defend themselves and their home," said Brandon Clabes, the police chief of Midwest City, Okla., a town of about 56,000, where in the past year and a half, three killings have been ruled justifiable under the state's law.

Few dispute the right of people to defend themselves inside their homes. The problem comes when both parties have a right to be where an assault has occurred, as in the Martin case, said Jacksonville, Fla., defense attorney Eric Friday, who lobbied for stand your ground. "You fall back on who was the aggressor," he said.

That forces prosecutors "to prove the person is not reasonable" when someone opens fire, said Sam Hoover, an attorney at the Legal Community Against Violence in San Francisco, which opposes the laws. "It makes it hard in cases ... to arrest the individual who killed him."

The situation is exacerbated when there are no eyewitnesses, as on the night of Feb. 26 when Martin, carrying some candy, a drink and his cell phone, was shot as he walked to the home of a family friend who lived in the same gated community as Zimmerman.